The present invention relates to a method of displaying a digital data sharing sequence using a mobile terminal and a mobile sharing device capable of using at least two communication modes for this data sharing.
The invention applies in particular to data sharing in a “point to point” or distributed communication network, commonly referred to as a “peer to peer” topology communication network.
The invention relates in particular to a mobile terminal of digital camera or portable telephone type having a capability of obtaining digital images.
Point to point networks have become an alternative to client/server networks which are widespread nowadays for data sharing on the Internet. This is because, through their distributed architecture, point to point networks make it possible to share a large number of digital data items between a large number of users without requiring an expensive infrastructure.
In practice, in a point to point network, each terminal acts as client and server. Thus, each terminal can request a digital data item or document from any other terminal on the network and the data exchange can be carried out directly from one terminal to another.
Hereinafter, the term “digital data item or document” applies to both digital videos and images, or also to texts or graphics.
The term “version” of a data item will designate the data item at a particular resolution. The original data item will have the highest resolution and the same data item at a lower resolution will be referred to as a thumbnail image. In the case where the digital data item is an image, the original data item will correspond to the original image, that is to say at full resolution, and the thumbnail image will correspond to a lower resolution image. In the case where the data item is a video, the original data item will correspond to the sequence of original images and the thumbnail image will correspond, for example, to the first image of the video at a resolution lower than the resolution of the original video.
Thus, in a point to point data exchange, each terminal can be both client and server.
This means that the digital data received by a client can be sent to other users by the server of this client.
The sharing of a digital data item can also be carried out using a mobile terminal of the latest generation mobile telephone or digital camera type, that is to say an apparatus having at least one wireless communication means.
As these apparatuses have limited calculation capabilities and short duration connection times to the point to point network, they cannot act as a server. Hereinafter, the term thin terminal or mobile terminal will be used to designate this type of apparatus.
Thus, using a thin terminal, a user can create a photograph, and share this photograph with a friend by sending him a thumbnail image of this photograph in order to limit the transfer cost of sharing the image. The original version of this photograph will be accessible by this friend only once the user has synchronized his apparatus with a terminal capable of acting as a server (in general his personal microcomputer).
This synchronization step will consist of uploading the original version of the shared image and of linking this version with the previously sent thumbnail image. Thus, this server terminal can deliver this original version of the image as soon as this friend or any other remote user so requests.
Sharing a digital data item using a thin terminal requires means for selecting the data item and means for selecting the recipients. Selection of the data items depends greatly on the apparatus used. For example, a digital camera makes it possible to linearly run through the photographs stored on the memory card using four buttons, Up/Down/Left/Right. Once the image has been selected, a confirmation button “SET” is actuated.
Selection of the recipients is conventionally carried out by running through a list by means of the Up/Down buttons and selecting the chosen recipient from a mobile telephone phone book. This list, or more exactly this address book, can contain telephone or fax numbers or electronic (e-mail) addresses.
Once a recipient has been selected in this way, the thin terminal creates the message and sends it.
If the thin terminal is equipped with a wireless connection, for example a Wi-Fi® (Wireless Fidelity) certified connection, the user can connect to an “Access Point” close to him on a structured network or to any other terminal possessing the same functionality and situated in proximity (ad hoc network).
Using a structured network, the user can have access to an Internet type external network and can have access to Web services such as a messaging system service using which he can send electronic mail (e-mail) or an MMS (Multimedia Messaging Services) type message to a person of his choice. Using an ad hoc network, he can send his message directly to the apparatus of a friend.
However, if the user of the thin terminal wishes to share digital data items with a set of recipients both by means of the structured network and by means of the ad hoc network, he must carry out several operations for each transmission mode. He cannot carry out the sharing in a single step and in a simple manner.
Even though there exist many communication apparatuses capable of communicating according to different communication modes (cameras, mobile telephones, PDAs, etc), interfaces facilitating sharing with many recipients communicating with the apparatus by different communication modes are not provided.
One of the most advanced systems is described in the patent application U.S. 2003058478 entitled “Communication apparatus provided with electronic address book”.
This patent application describes a communication apparatus capable of communicating according to several communication modes. An address book is associated in memory with each transmission mode. When a user wishes to send a data item, the user determines the communication mode. The apparatus then determines the corresponding address book which is displayed on a graphical interface.
The communication apparatus described in this document of the prior art contains previously stored address books. Dynamic creation of addresses for sending data items is not provided.